


Magical Thinking

by billtheradish



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Guilt, Magic, Mama Stilinski Feels, Not Happy, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-16
Updated: 2013-04-16
Packaged: 2017-12-08 15:56:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/763222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/billtheradish/pseuds/billtheradish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It can be pretty extraordinary, what the force of your own will can accomplish.</i><br/> </p><p>(Read The Tags.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Magical Thinking

**Author's Note:**

> Seriously. This story is not intended or written to make you _happy_. Take care of yourself and don't read further if reading about death and guilt is going to be bad for you right now.

Sometimes, he still feels her hand in his hair, as he's waking up. The press of too-thin fingers rubbing over his scalp. How the room had smelled like bleach and grief. The steady hum and beep of the machines and the muffled tap of a nurse walking past. 

It was horrible, knowing his mom was sick but not really _understanding_. Knowing she had to stay, that her medicine was making her sick, that she was still his mom, even if she kind of looked like an alien.

No one would tell him _why_ , though. No one told him what it meant, or when she'd be better, or why she was taking the medicine if it was so bad for her. 

The nurses sometimes looked sad when he asked. The doctors ignored him, or told him he shouldn't worry about it. His dad--

He didn't ask his dad anymore.

It was okay, though. He could wait.

She was his mom. She'd be okay.

\-----

Stiles taps the steering wheel with his thumbs and stares at the red light. He thinks _change_ and the light turns green. He tries to believe it wasn't really him.

He knows what this is. Recognizes the taste these thoughts leaves in his mouth. He spent what felt like months learning about it. Learning it wasn't real.

Magical thinking: thinking or believing that your thoughts affect the real world. That your thoughts can create real, tangible results even if you don't do anything with them.

In a different, tamer form: post hoc ergo propter hoc. A comes before B, therefore A causes B. 

Step on a crack, break your mother's back.

\-----

He'd been careful about how he walked ever since he first heard that rhyme. Stepped around the cracks in the sidewalk. Lifted his feet over the seams, in case that counted.

There were forty-seven rows of tiles between the elevator and his mom's room, and two cracked tiles on the left side of the hall. He walked on the right, stretching his legs out to cover two rows with each step.

"What are you doing back, baby?"

He didn't answer right away. It was harder, when he wasn't just going in a straight line. When there was furniture in the way. He stumbled and hesitated just short of the chair, glaring down at his feet. It was fine, though. He hadn't crossed a line.

Probably.

From there, it didn't take long to scramble up into the chair, then onto the bed in the space she left just for him. 

Her hand was dry against his head as she brushed his hair back. Dry and weak, like her voice. "Thought you went home, kiddo."

"No."

He couldn't help, if he was at home. 

\-----

Magical thinking isn't all that different. Person A wishes ill on someone. That person has ill befall them. Person A's thoughts caused ill fortune for someone else.

It's an awesome brain trick. People love it. Especially kids. It lets you have all sorts of powers. You can change stop lights, make people trip, alter the weather.

Kill someone.

You just need to think something before it's going to happen anyway, and it's like magic.

_If this is going to work, Stiles, you have to believe it._

Just. Like. Magic.

\-----

He remembers waking up, thinking there was a spider on his head. His mother's hand in his hair, spasming. Raised voices and movement. A hand pulling him away.

He remembers knowing, with absolute certainty, that his mother was going to die.

Then she did.

_It can be pretty extraordinary, what the force of your own will can accomplish._

\-----

He can still feel the ash in his hand. The shaky trickle as it stopped flowing, stopped being enough. The gritty remainder that wouldn't fall, caught against his sweaty palm.

Before he'd opened his eyes, he hadn't really believed. He didn't know why it worked. Definitely didn't know _how_ it worked. 

It'd felt more miracle than magic.

Then he broke the line. He knelt, and he knew what was going to happen. Absolute certainty.

He gestured and the ash parted.

He knew it would happen, and it did.

He knew.

Later, when he had the luxury of staring at his ceiling in the dark and wondering when he'd be able to sleep, he remembered.

The ash moving on its own.

The steady tone of the heart monitor before they'd shut it off.

He'd known.

It was kind of funny what one night could do to a year and a half of therapy.

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to [Verity](http://archiveofourown.org/users/verity/pseuds/verity) for beta reading this. And as a reminder, [I'm for sale here](http://ao3auction.tumblr.com/billtheradish) until the 25th as part of the [AO3 Fundraising Auction](http://ao3auction.tumblr.com/). I'm offering _two_ stories, not just one, and both of them would be longer than this.
> 
> I didn't write this _just_ to try and punch people in the feelings, I really did want to explore some possible negatives for the hints of magic we've seen so far in the series.


End file.
